Ambivalent waves: surf tourism and human-waves relations in Siberut, Mentawai Islands

ABSTRACT

As contemporary surf tourism research primarily focuses on sustainability or socio-economic impacts, the materiality of waves tends to become simplified or overshadowed. By taking the latter more seriously, this article particularly aims to explicate how local human-waves relations offer nuanced and complex accounts of what it means to live with waves in surf tourism destinations. Drawing on Ingold’s (2000. The perception of the environment: Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. London: Routledge) notions of ‘engagement’ and ‘perception’, human-waves relations become illustrated here as ‘ambivalent’ given their practically complex interdependence and the irreducibility of waves and humans. On basis of field observations in Siberut, Mentawai Islands, Indonesia, this article highlights how local Mentawaian engagements with waves develop in terms of ambiguous and dynamic notions of ‘good waves’, ‘fear’ and ‘pleasure’, and practices of ‘avoidance/encounter’. These notions emphasize the often complex and everyday engagements Mentawaians have with waves, but also offer an avenue to recognize the importance of attending to the seemingly trivial matter of waves in context of a surf tourism destination.

KEYWORDS:

• Waves
• surf tourism
• human-environment relations
• engagement
• Ingold

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Sarani Pitor Pakan is a lecturer in Tourism at Vocational College, Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia. His research interests mainly concern surf tourism and backpacker travel. His future research project is about surf tourism places in Indonesia, where waves are present yet surfing was not a traditional sea-based practice. In other words, using waves as a point of departure, he aims to understand how local knowledges and practices interact with surf tourism developments across Indonesia.

Dr. Arjaan Pellis works as a lecturer for the Cultural Geography Group. His teaching primarily contributes to sustainable tourism courses offered at Wageningen University (on campus and online). Arjaan’s research primarily relates to the mapping of complex social conflict emerging in tourism practices, particularly in context of protected areas. By mapping how social networks engage with emerging conflicts in these contexts, Arjaan aims to better understand how these conflicts evolve and co-perform tourism practices across different destinations.